RBG as a Priest

I actually came back mostly because there is RBG's now. I've always loved battlegrounds and didnt really like arena that much.

I currently have a 80 Paladin, 80 Shaman and 86 Priest. I've always loved my priest healing wise, over the others.. I especially like playing Holy.

But I've searched on random forums, that priest are reeeaally in a bad state.. I just simply cant play my Pala or shaman, because they're not as much fun as my BE priest.

Am I doomed as a holy priest wanting to play RBG or do I actually have a chance? I'm really looking for a pad on my shoulders from a guy who does well in the RBG and telling me, that with skills, I'll be able to achieve something and not just be rock-bottom due to everyone focusing on me and killing me all the time.

Am I forever doomed or will I have an actual chance of doing something?

Well, as a healer in general, you (now) get trained pretty hard in BGs and RBGs. I don't remember getting trained this hard in Cata as a healer, but it's rough sometimes, and I know the teams I'm on will go after priests first so that should tell you about them. That said, once 5.1 rolls around and disc gets focused will that may make all the difference, or I hope it does anyway because like you, I enjoy my priest much more than my other healers. Pally healing is just borrrrring. And I miss having a 30-second mass fear, etc. But I'm sure you'd be fine in low MMR RBGs, probably could get at least to 2k before the buff happens, but idk about as holy. Unless you're going for glad or 2400 rbg I'm sure you'll be fine as a priest...skill can overcome class to a certain extent.

Nobody that I know runs with a disc priest in RBG's. You don't even need a priest anymore since dispel is on a 8 second cd and mass dispel is on a 15 second cd. Other healers like pallys and resto shamans are just more powerful and don't run out of mana as fast. When you get trained as a priest (and you will), you are pretty much as good as dead unless your whole rbg group stops to try and peel for you when you get focused. 9/10 that's not going to happen.

I played a disc priest in arena for years now in pvp, and on the tourney realm. This is by far the worst state I have ever seen them in for pvp. Hell, HOLY IS BETTER IN RBGS than disc. At least when you die as a holy priest you can still heal as a spirit, and with the glyph you can free cast for 25 seconds after you die (which for a priest healer is about the only time they can cast). It's pretty bad.

I'm very much like you in that I have every healer leveled but I enjoy the priest playstyle by far the most (so much so that I had three of them at 85 in cata on different servers).

I also love holy for rbgs.. the spec has a great toolkit for it - FC guarding with guardian spirit, lightwell, and void shift on top of double spirit of redemption (with a soulstone) or big group fights with a more powerful renew and aoe you pump out heals like no other. Seriously it's very rare I don't top the charts outhealing everyone as holy, not that charts matter, just feels good =p. In 5.1 holy's getting a 10% buff to heals on top of arena restrictions applying to rbgs (no more lay on hands, bloodlust, etc) so that'll be interesting to see.

That being said here's the bad news.. if you're someone looking to pug rbgs either on a big name server or through cross-realm chat/lists, no one past 1600mmr will want a priest healing their group. The stigma attached to our class (very similar to the start of cata) that you see on all the forums you've visited is very much present in game. You'll have a hard time getting a spot in a serious rbg group just cause you won't be wanted as holy/disc right now. (Shadow still remains in high demand though lol)

Now for my personal experience, I have an awesome guild with a core rbg team so I don't have to worry about whether I can get a spot or not. Our core team is healed by me as holy, a resto shaman, and resto druid and we do an excellent job together. We're only 1800-1900 now but I can tell you yes holy is able to achieve success in rbgs. Now I don't personally have too many problems with being focused down, enemy teams seem to gravitate toward our druid most of the time lol (much to her dismay!), but we've got tools to deal with the pressure and a coordinated team can provide good peels in team fights. And as the poster above me said, free spam healing from beyond the grave is also amazing, has saved us from caps several times.

Don't listen to priestraislin. If you enjoy your priest more than other classes then you should go with it. I've been in 2k RBG groups with healing priests. Yes they get focused hard, but you KNOW this ahead of time so if you're in a decent group they can coordinate CDs for you, such as sac, roar of sac, etc. As a holy pally healer I'd almost always have both my beacon and sacred shield on our priest.

->>stupid question regarding holy spec, which chakra increases the healing of renew? is it still the aoe chakra?

Holy priest? Yeah, you're probably doomed. As a disc priest you have a chance since they'll be getting some buffs soon. Disc has always been the PvP spec, and any PvP healing buffs for priests will be aimed at that spec (like the Focused Will one on the PTR now).

Well, as a healer in general, you (now) get trained pretty hard in BGs and RBGs. I don't remember getting trained this hard in Cata as a healer, but it's rough sometimes, and I know the teams I'm on will go after priests first so that should tell you about them. That said, once 5.1 rolls around and disc gets focused will that may make all the difference, or I hope it does anyway because like you, I enjoy my priest much more than my other healers. Pally healing is just borrrrring. And I miss having a 30-second mass fear, etc. But I'm sure you'd be fine in low MMR RBGs, probably could get at least to 2k before the buff happens, but idk about as holy. Unless you're going for glad or 2400 rbg I'm sure you'll be fine as a priest...skill can overcome class to a certain extent.

Welcome to Blizzard's healing debuff solution. They make healers the weakest link, and only retards wouldn't attack the weakest link. They should just remove healing from PvP, because healer's will never be given a fair shake as long as 85% of the player base is DPS.

Welcome to Blizzard's healing debuff solution. They make healers the weakest link, and only retards wouldn't attack the weakest link. They should just remove healing from PvP, because healer's will never be given a fair shake as long as 85% of the player base is DPS.

healing in bgs/rbgs felt good in Cata but my biggest gripe with MoP is the vast amount of CC people have now. Due to the talent system in its current state most specs have an additional 1-2 CCs they didn't have before. Such as warriors with shockwave, etc. I hate referring to Swtor because we know how that game failed, but the resolve mechanic(when it worked properly anyway) was really nice. It's just so lame not being able to control your character for 20+ seconds due to stun/silence/fear chains.

Welcome to Blizzard's healing debuff solution. They make healers the weakest link, and only retards wouldn't attack the weakest link. They should just remove healing from PvP, because healer's will never be given a fair shake as long as 85% of the player base is DPS.

DPS gets a similar debuff since everyone automatically has something like 40% resil... so what's the big deal? Seems pretty even to me.

Chances are you won't get invited to any RBG groups as Disc or Holy. We have run into a holy priest at ~2100 rating and they beat us, so it's not like the class is totally useless, but you're going to have a hard time finding a (serious) group that will want you on their team.

However. Shadow currently kicks ass in RBG's, there will be at least 1 on every team. Tons of control and multi-target damage with some big burst potential when procs line up. I know it's not what you want to play, but just saying you could play shadow while blizzard works on their patches, get your toons rating up and whatnot so that you will be in a position to jump into play if and when they fix healing priests.